


the big fish's wings are too wide (i loosen the rope of time)

by gypsumgreen



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Depends, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Maybe - Freeform, Names, No beta we die like illiterates, Typed in half an hour, based on Big Fish and Begonia, big parallels of sea and sky, but not really, byakuran is a fish and a bird and a human at the same time and different times at once, byakuran isn't human, first khr fic, idk - Freeform, in retrospect adding no flames on a khr fic is funny, it's in Chinese though I think there's subs?, look I'm listening to its track ok, names are important, no flames, not exactly, quite sad, seriously go watch it, tell me if I got the tenses all wonky, uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26750464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gypsumgreen/pseuds/gypsumgreen
Summary: He misses what was that will never be.
Relationships: Byakuran & Sawada Tsunayoshi
Kudos: 13





	the big fish's wings are too wide (i loosen the rope of time)

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't read the tags, I typed this out in half an hour or less, with only the English translation of the original Chinese song and Wikipedia's article about the animation keeping me afloat. 
> 
> This is my first fic, so mind the character inconsistencies and leave a comment if you wish so.

Once, there was a fish so large the oceans could not fit it. It hadn't a name, but someone, somewhere, in another universe had once called it by something. 

Something it forgot. 

It became a bird, then, with a wingspan so large that a single flap caused waves thousands of metres high. Having only the sun on its back and seas of cloud below it, it flew. 

Once it could not fly, it became human. Civilization had just been built; it was curious. 

He - not it, now - lived for thousands of years as a human, dying and living and dying again; he lived in what was in between. A human with fire the colouration of his first incarnation, fire that didn't burn nor extinguish under water. A human with large, feathery wings larger than any existing bird. 

Humans grew and changed and civilizations rose and fell. He saw mud huts and wooden sheds and concrete walls in a single blink of an eye. 

He yearned for the sea. He missed the sky. This body was of the earth, and flowers, orange and white. 

He named himself Byakuran, then, white lilies, purity, death and rebirth. 

The fire spread. 

\---

Byakuran realised that he'd gotten caught in a loop at some point. He didn't remember when. 

There was that man, yes, with a hat filled with the weight of the world. Not a man - a man much like him, but older. There were rings of each colour of the rainbow, red and orange and yellow and green - with tiny wings, even - that called themselves Mare, of the sea. 

Did the man - he named himself Kawahira - know?

He accepted them. Best not to trifle with the Old Ones. 

He lived in dreams. 

He forgot how to dream. 

\---

There was a boy. A boy that could still dream. 

He called himself Tsunayoshi, and rarely Sawada. 

Byakuran gazed at the little human boy before him - so much like him, he noted, from the sky, of the sky. Not of the sea, though. 

There was a hazy memory licking at the edges of his mind. Long before he lived in the seas. 

Someone had named him once. 

Why was he remembering that now? 

\---

Byakuran unfurls his wings.

(a bird with a wingspan so large-) 

The Ring glints. 

(a fish so large the oceans couldn't fit-) 

He flies not through physical space but dreams and memories. Orange waves and white clouds. 

He swims not with fins but with time. Time that turned back, again and again, for what was but would never be. 

Sometimes, seas and skies look the same. 

\---

Byakuran doesn't remember much about what came before. 

He doesn't remember a boy, adult before he should've been born, swimming with him. 

He doesn't remember his naming. 

He doesn't remember his first death as a human, in another universe. 

He doesn't remember the tree of flowers that sealed the sky, that was the sky. 

He doesn't remember taking refuge in it when even the wind turned against him. 

What he remembers is feeling safe.

**Author's Note:**

> here's the song for reference: https://youtu.be/-aMdBA00Ijc  
> lyrics (weird grammar, but somewhat coherent): https://lyricspinyin.com/2020/03/15/da-yu-%E5%A4%A7%E9%AD%9A-by-zhou-shen-%E5%91%A8%E6%B7%B1-pinyin-lyrics-and-english-translation/  
> Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Fish_%26_Begonia  
> thanks for reading, and leave a kudo and/or comment on your way out!
> 
> Edit: the first few paragraphs make more sense in context of https://wk.baidu.com/view/2ef595126c175f0e7cd1377e?pcf=2&re=view&bfetype=new  
> It's a poem(?) written by the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi in the Spring and Autumn Period. The animation is also (probably) based off this.


End file.
